1. Field
The present disclosure is related to enterprise distribution systems (EDS) that manage the distribution of software upgrade and patches to network devices, and in particular to system administration and management portals that coordinate timing of such deployments in accordance with administrator privileges.
2. Background
Computer networks can correspond to a number of computing devices connected via various communication links. Small companies tend to have computer networks in which each end user computer system is generally individually configured with required software, upgrades and software patches. Often, the owner (e.g., a supervisor or director) of a collection of such end user computer systems thus has significant input into the computing needs of his subordinates. For example, an information technology (IT) technician assigned to that particular business unit can have sufficient network privileges to implement each needed software configuration change. Additional system and software capabilities can thus be scheduled when needed and implemented at a time that is not disruptive to the business unit. While this flexibility has certain advantages, this can be extremely inefficient in requiring a relatively large number of IT personnel for the population of systems.
In a typical larger scale network environment, an “enterprise” network may include a plurality of server and client computing devices at several geographic locations. As computer networks grow in size and complexity, there is a need for administrative tools that facilitate software distribution, asset management and/or software patch deployment. One such administrative tool is Microsoft Corporation's Systems Management Server (“SMS”). In administrative tools, such as SMS, computers (e.g., servers) are located throughout a computer network and are configured to have a specific software distribution/management role. Often times, the specific configuration of a server will depend on the network topology and/or the anticipated software distribution load of the network. For example, in SMS, a server can have one of many possible management/distribution roles, such as a central server, distribution point, secondary site, management point, reporting point, and the like.
In order to preserve the integrity of the system, a relatively small number of enterprise administrators have sufficient authorization to make changes across the enterprise by making changes via the SMS. Individual business units generally have limited input to changes to the SMS in order to preserve such economies of scale. For example, an enterprise-wide downtime can be scheduled over night during a weekend as a generally acceptable solution to avoiding network disruptions. However, waiting a number of business days can be detrimental in certain situations, or can interfere with a particular project that plans to work during the generally-scheduled downtime.
Thus, conventional solutions offer all or nothing administrative control, especially for enterprise-scaled systems that do not allow control by individual requesters. In particular, requesters do not have the ability to specify the specific date and time that the changes will be applied.